


The Collector (The Magic Marker Remix)

by NancyBrown



Category: Batman Beyond
Genre: Gen, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-06-29 11:22:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15728388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NancyBrown/pseuds/NancyBrown
Summary: Bruce has a collection. Max thinks that's creepy.





	The Collector (The Magic Marker Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gwenfrankenstien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwenfrankenstien/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Caped Crusader](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12460263) by [gwenfrankenstien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwenfrankenstien/pseuds/gwenfrankenstien). 



The old man was a collector. Max came upon this knowledge gradually, like snowfall slowly building up on a street until the eye noticed the pavement was gone and only the crisp white surface remained. She saw the trophies in her first visit to the Batcave. She saw the empty, stretching hallways of Wayne Manor, decorated in expensive works of art. These were easy, not even clues. Then her eye noticed the art, noticed the oil portraits painted from life hung in places of honor, and noticed the dusty frames and shapes of the priceless pieces dotted carelessly around like forgotten litter. She paid more attention to the madcap items on display in the darkness under the Manor: the giant penny, meticulously polished, and the old uniforms in pristine cases, the freeze gun, and so much more.

Bruce collected the things that mattered to him, and gave an old eccentric's lip service to a collection that didn't. Not one speck of dust touched the frame of his mother's picture. The coiled-up whip resting on a plinth towards the back -- somewhere Max understood later that she shouldn't have been and should never have seen -- appeared to be as lithe and smooth as the day it was manufactured, oiled and cared for as the best leather should be.

Creepy. It was creepy.

It got creepier when she noticed Terry started to do the same thing. One day she came to the Cave, and she saw a single playing card set to catch the light. One of Melanie's, she had no doubt. Curaré's sword joined it on display a few months later.

"It's nothing," Terry said.

"It's weird," Max replied. "You're becoming more like him every day. Can't you see that?"

He shrugged her off, not for the first time. Max knew she had to keep herself separate from this. The Bats were all intense, broody lunatics, and just because she'd started donning a cape of her own this past year did not mean she intended to follow in their steps.

"You don't have to be crazy to be Batgirl, but it helps." Commissioner Gordon saw through her worries as soon as they sat down at the diner together. Her eyes gleamed with understanding, and Max could practically feel the words rolling around in her mouth: don't do this, don't go down this path. But telling someone not to be a Bat had never worked, not even on that poor fellow Drake. Gordon knew that.

"I've been his partner for years. It's not as though I'm coming into this unaware."

The server brought them both strong coffee. Gordon wrapped her hands around her mug like a woman holding onto her last chance. Max gripped the handle of hers and refused to squeeze.

"It's different when you're the one out there. You can talk in his ear all night, running his searches and scouring the cams, but when you're out there, you have to be your own eyes. You've got his back and he's got yours. It's intense. You can lose yourself in the night."

Max almost retorted a blithe response, then forced herself to stop and listen. Gordon wanted her to succeed. She was offering advice. She was the only person in Gotham to have worn the cowl and walked away on her own terms after, and it was worth Max's time to hear what she had to say.

"How do I keep from losing myself?"

Gordon took a long drink of her coffee, making a face at the flavor.

"Remind yourself of who you are. You're not the cape. You are Maxine Gibson, and you're amazing."

"I'm amazing," Max repeated to herself hours later, atop a high roof overlooking one of the worse parts of town. The old man's intel said the Jokerz were setting up shop again. Then he'd made a clown pun. There was no going back for him, really.

Max found a knock-off Harley Quinn and followed her back to the new hideout. She could take them out on her own right now, or she could mark their location and come back with Terry.

"Who are you?" she asked herself, but she already knew the answer, firing her grappling hook as she sent Bruce her position.

She had them zip-tied by the time Terry showed up. He growled at her as they hauled the baddies to where the cops could pick them up later, and he lectured in her ear as they made their separate ways home after.

Max ignored him. It had been a good night.

More good nights followed. She was careful to keep on eye on her real life. She had a job that she loved. She wasn't going on the WE payroll like Terry had. He spent his spare time helping out the Justice League, and she spent hers reminding herself to live her own life.

Word got around that a new cape was on the scene. She ran into a few of his League friends while working a case, and dodged questions when they'd finished about why she was so sunny when Batman was, well, Batman. "Trade secret," Max said, and that got a laugh from Superman, which made her whole night. When the Justice League announced they'd caught the villains, Superman made sure to put in there, "With a hand from Batgirl, with our thanks." That made her whole week, and the week after, too.

"Don't let it go to your head," said Bruce, but he was always like that about Superman.

Then the children happened. Max was used to seeing little kids dress up as heroes. Bruce's old costume showed up in miniature, and so did Terry's. Little Aquagirl here, little Green Lantern there. Kid stuff. Now some of them had started dressing up as Batgirl.

Her mask wasn't a full face like Terry's. Max couldn't breathe under that. She left her hair showing, and matched it with bright pink tights. A costume within a costume. "It's garish," Bruce had said. "It won't blend in well," Terry had said. "It's very you," Gordon had said, and Max had kept the look.

Now she saw little girls with her same bright pink hair chasing down their Jokerz-garbed brothers with shrieks of "Stop, evildoer!"

"I should try that on you sometime," she told Terry as they watched a small scene unfold beneath them.

"Yeah, try it," he said, and swooped over to the next building. Max hid her laugh and followed him.

It was Halloween, and the usual jerks were using the excuse to go out in disguise. Max knew all the capes would be patrolling tonight. It beat waiting in her apartment with candy. Four attempted robberies later, the streets were thinning out when Max spotted someone looking a little too Scarecrow-like for the night approaching a dad and two little kids. Terry was halfway across town by now, but she could handle it.

Max dropped to the street in front of Scarecrow Guy with a smile. "I think trick or treating is over for tonight."

His glare and the gun he reached for confirmed her suspicions.

"Get back," she said to the family, keeping herself between them and the guy. There wasn't much "back" for them to get. Scarecrow had followed them down a blind alley.

"You're the Bat Girl," said Scarecrow. "I heard about you." His voice jeered with a half-giggle. She didn't see any augmentations on him, but that didn't mean he didn't have any. One of the Jokerz.

"That's what they call me. Now are you going to turn around and go back to your barn quietly, or are we going to have trouble?"

"Trouble," he said, and shot. Max dodged, sweeping her cape around and up to catch the projectile. A gas missile, already starting to spray. Her cape was reinforced with a liner designed to stop most things they threw at her, but the gas hissed and stank.

"Run," she coughed to the family, rolling the gas canister into her cape to stop it from spreading further. Already Scarecrow was rushing her, knocking Max to the ground with more force than he seemed to have in his wiry body.

She'd been training, though, as the bruises down her arms and legs could attest. She rolled and managed to bunch up her knees between them, kicking him hard in the sternum. He fell, and she rolled again, still coughing, her eyes streaming. He didn't get up.

Max touched her ear. "Hey, old man. Send the GCPD to my location. I have a pick-up for them. Bring the hazmat team."

"What's wrong?" Terry barked, cutting in on the conversation. "Are you all right?"

"I'll be fine," she said, still coughing. "Got a nose full of Jokerz gas."

"Get back to the Cave," Bruce said in her ear. "Or I'm calling you an ambulance."

One more cough, and she was on her feet again. "'Good show, Batgirl.' 'Nice catching the bad guy, Batgirl.'"

"Home," said Bruce, and cut out.

Terry said, "I'll be there in two minutes."

Max rolled her eyes. Then she saw the people she'd been protecting hadn't run. "Hey, I said to get out of here. This is nasty stuff."

"Are you okay?" asked the dad, clearly shaken. "He came out of nowhere."

"He was following you for two streets. The police are on their way if you want to make a statement."

"Thank you," he said. To her surprise, his daughter ran to her and hugged her legs. Max noticed the bright pink hair.

"Thank you, Batgirl!" she said. Max patted her head, a little uncomfortable. Kids weren't her thing, even kids dressed up like her.

"You're welcome."

"I did this!" the little girl said, dropping the hug and reaching into her candy bag. She pulled out a drawing and shoved her hand up to Max. It took a moment for her streaming eyes to focus on the suddenly-close picture, but Max could see the pink hair and tights, and her own smile under the mask, all in magic marker. The kid had talent.

"This is pretty good," she said.

"You keep it."

"I can't," Max said, before she caught the look on the dad's face. "I mean, not without giving you something in return." She dug in her utility belt. It was Halloween after all. She'd picked up a few treats along the way, intending to munch them when she got home later. The chocolate was still wrapped. With another glance to the dad, who nodded, she handed the candy to the little girl.

"Batgirl candy! Daddy, look! I got Batgirl candy!"

"Take care," Max said, and fired her grappling hook to get out of there before the police showed up. Terry met her a street away.

"Are you all right?" he demanded.

"I'll be fine." At his worried look, even under the cowl, she said, "But I'll head back and let the old man take a listen to my lungs, all right?"

"Fine."

Hours later, and pronounced healthy enough to go home by Bruce, Max let herself into her apartment. They'd offered to let her have a place in the mansion. It was roomy enough for a couple dozen people, and empty with just the two crabby residents and the dog. But Max liked having her own place. It reminded her of who she was.

She unfolded the picture, carefully straightening out the wrinkles in the paper from where she'd tucked it into her belt. She found a few pushpins and stuck it on her thinking board. Then she smiled.

It was time to start a collection of her own.


End file.
